Robert T. Tobin
| Robert Terry Tobin | |
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Undated portrait of Mayor Tobin
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| (Interim) Mayor of Minden Webster Parish, Louisiana, USA |
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In office February 6, 1989 – December 5, 1989 |
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| Preceded by | Noel "Gene" Byars |
| Succeeded by | Paul A. Brown |
| Minden City Council member | |
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In office 1978–1989 |
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| Preceded by | New position |
| Succeeded by | Theron W. Winzer |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
September 10, 1910 Lucky, Bienville Parish Louisiana, USA |
| Died | September 13, 2007 (aged 97) Minden, Louisiana |
| Resting place | New Prosperity Baptist Church Garden of Memories in Lucky, Louisiana |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Thelma McCoy Tobin (married 1932–2007, his death) |
| Children | One daughter (deceased) |
| Alma mater | Stanford University |
| Occupation | Educator |
Robert Terry Tobin (September 10, 1910 – September 13, 2007) was an African-American educator who became the first member of his race to have served as mayor of Minden, a small city of about 13,000 residents and the seat of government of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Mayor Tobin's ten-month tenure in 1989 occurred before the 2000 U.S. census confirmed Minden's status as a majority black locality.
Robert Tobin was the second of seven children born to Nat Tobin and his wife, Jane Patterson (1894–1982), in Louisiana's Bienville Parish village of Lucky. The family moved to Arcadia, the parish seat, so that the Tobin children could obtain a better education. Young Robert graduated from a black school in Arcadia, where he met his future wife, Thelma McCoy. At the time of his death, the couple had been married for seventy-six years and had outlived their daughter.
A World War II veteran of the 78th United States Army Signal Corps, Tobin was honorably discharged with the rank of technical sergeant and remained a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Studying at Louisiana's Southern University in Baton Rouge, a historically black institution of higher learning, and graduating with a major in science and a minor in mathematics, he subsequently attended California's Stanford University in Palo Alto, from which he obtained a master of science degree in science and secondary school supervision. He then entered the teaching profession at Castor Elementary School in the Bienville Parish village of Castor, later becoming principal of the school and subsequently transferring, at the invitation of his friend and mentor, Wilbur Leon Hayes, to the then-all-black Webster High School in Minden, where he served as a classroom teacher, assistant principal and principal. Five years after his retirement in 1970 from the field of education, the school was consolidated with the previously white Minden High School.
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